Another day, another RINO betrayal of President Donald Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party as a whole.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski crossed party lines Tuesday to endorse Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for governor of Alaska, putting the longtime Trump critic squarely against him and his preferred candidate in one of the country’s most closely watched gubernatorial contests.
Murkowski announced her support for Kreiss-Tomkins, a former Democratic state representative from Sitka, despite three Republicans appearing alongside him on Alaska’s November ballot. Trump endorsed Republican Bernadette Wilson during an Oct. 13 rally in Wasilla and has subsequently urged Republicans to consolidate behind her rather than splitting their support among multiple GOP candidates.
“JKT is a young Alaskan with a view and a perspective that I think Alaska needs right now,” Murkowski told Alaska’s News Source, praising what she described as his ability to work across partisan lines.
?Just in: Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has endorsed Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the Alaska Democratic Candidate for Governor pic.twitter.com/jkanvV3LxY
— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) October 28, 2026
Murkowski said Alaska needs a governor capable of working with the state Legislature and argued that cooperation in Juneau is also necessary for Alaska’s congressional delegation to succeed in Washington.
“Our future is too important to be hamstrung by partisan divisions,” Murkowski said in a separate statement released Tuesday, adding that Kreiss-Tomkins understands the importance of finding common ground – which would make her just about the only Democrat who actually feels that way (if she really does).
Kreiss-Tomkins welcomed the endorsement and said he respects Murkowski’s willingness to work across party lines in the Senate, describing bipartisanship as a quality he hopes to emulate if elected governor.
The endorsement immediately drew criticism from Wilson, who accused Murkowski of abandoning Republican priorities and attacked Kreiss-Tomkins over his positions on taxes, the Permanent Fund dividend and Trump.
Wilson also pointed to her own history with Murkowski, noting that she worked on Republican Joe Miller’s 2010 Senate campaign when Miller defeated Murkowski in the GOP primary before Murkowski ultimately won reelection through a historic write-in campaign.
Murkowski’s endorsement is particularly notable because Kreiss-Tomkins is the only Democrat among the four candidates competing to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The other candidates are Wilson, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor, all Republicans.
Dunleavy has declined to endorse one specific Republican and instead urged GOP voters to rank all three Republican candidates under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, which is being widely panned around the country and increasingly unpopular in the state.
Murkowski’s father, former Republican Sen. and Gov. Frank Murkowski, also endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins on Tuesday in an Anchorage Daily News opinion piece written with former Democratic Gov. Tony Knowles and former independent Gov. Bill Walker.
The three former governors said their political differences were outweighed by their shared belief that Kreiss-Tomkins was the candidate they wanted to support for Alaska’s future, so it’s pretty clear where the current Sen. Murkowski gets her betrayal vibes.
Lisa Murkowski has previously supported Democrats in major Alaska elections, including endorsing former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola during her unsuccessful 2024 reelection campaign for the U.S. House.
She has not abandoned Republican candidates across the board, however, and this year endorsed fellow Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan for reelection despite Democrat Peltola challenging him. The gubernatorial endorsement comes amid another escalation in Murkowski’s longstanding feud with Trump, who recently called her the “Republicans’ Worst Senator” and a “DISGRACE to Alaska and our Country.”
Murkowski has repeatedly broken with Trump during his political career, including voting to convict him during his second impeachment trial following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. She also opposed Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 Supreme Court confirmation during a key procedural vote and has challenged Trump on tariffs and several actions taken during his second administration.
The Alaska governor’s race has become especially complicated for Republicans because three GOP candidates remain on the ballot, potentially dividing first-choice Republican support under the state’s ranked-choice system.
A New York Times/Siena University poll conducted from Sept. 24 through Oct. 1 found Kreiss-Tomkins at 46% among likely voters, Wilson at 24%, Bronson at 17% and Taylor at 13%, although polling represents only a snapshot of voter preferences before Election Day.
Kreiss-Tomkins served a decade in the Alaska House representing a district that included Sitka and has made bipartisan cooperation a central argument of his campaign, including pledging to appoint Republicans and independents as well as Democrats to his administration.
Murkowski also criticized the outgoing Dunleavy administration while explaining her endorsement, arguing that Alaska had missed opportunities to take advantage of federal resources during Dunleavy’s eight years in office, half of which, by the way, were during the Biden regime, which treated GOP-run states like red-headed stepchildren.
